FWIW, I consider the Drakensang games boring and dry as sand - but to each his own ;)

They are, though. :lol: That's part of why I love 'em. None of that fancy graphics and this and that, just some hardcore pen-and-paper-style CRPGing. :P

You like boring games?

I had to force myself to finish Drakensang and I don't even remember if I finished River of Time or not. Thinking about, I don't even remember what was the plot of either games, lol.

Yes, I love boring games. :rolleyes:

I was joking. I found the game enjoyable and very charming, more so than Origins, but yes, Drakensang is a bit dry. It's a "low excitement" type of CRPG as I call it, heavy on the pen-and-paper CRPG style. Origins has higher production values, better animation, better overall graphical presentation and some other fun high budget items, but I still play Drakensang instead because I prefer deeper "traditional" CRPGs.

Gothic is also what I would consider a "low excitement" CRPG, btw. Slow, methodical and "low excitement" but very satisfying and rewarding for a fan of the style.

Just about to start my 7th playthrough of this.

For all it's flaws, it's still one of my fave games ever. It's just so rich with great banter, great characters, great lore and weighty C&C choices.

I'm also one of the few who actually loves the combat. I thrive on the tension created as you slowly wait to see an action executed. You do have to play on Nightmare to get the full feel, but on that level it's mint.

Really hope they do produce a proper sequel one day. May seem unlikely, but after about 10-15 years people seem to go back to appriciating older stuff. Hell who'd have thunk we'd have got Pillars back in 2007?

That's actually an interesting thought.
Personally I think that Dragon Age and Pillars don't have enough personal uniqueness.
Once they are dead for a couple of years, people will probably rather think back to Baldurs Gate again instead of this "second row" of games.

I also loved the combat and it what make me play through it 3 times. Unfortunately there’s just not enough there to make it a game I continue to replay. Races, classes, character progression are just to limited and the middle of the game when your recruiting allies just drags a bit too much.

I’ll always lament the direction the series took and wish it would have kept the core mechanics, expanded classes, races and character progression then continued the grey warden story. Maybe in the sequel you could have looked for a cure to the darkspawn taint.

I liked DA:O quite a bit, but I can't fathom how anyone could play it that many times. It's not that good. :)

I loved the setting and how dark the game was, but I thought it was a little too long for its own good. It definitely dragged at times (the dwarf city comes to mind), and I think it would actually be better if the main quest was shorter and tighter. To me, it was never really close to being as good as Baldur's Gate.

It's a hundred times better than DA2 though or at least what I've seen of it. I couldn't even make it out of the first chapter in that game.

I've always meant to play this again - because I never played the expansion, and I want that complete feeling.

I thought the combat itself was pretty good - it was more the lack of tactical options in terms of non-magical characters that bothered me.

Melee characters had very few options - and once they'd picked their weapon of choice - the skills themselves more or less picked themselves. Almost no flavor there.

Also, I remember most fights being a matter of taking out 1-3 "big dudes" - and the rest 100% tank and spank. Few exceptions. I mean, my dual wielding Rogue did the exact same thing in every single fight - more or less. I do love stabbing things in the back, but a little variety never hurt anyone :)

That did grow tiresome towards the end.

But the story, characters and overall tone of the game was excellent. Loved the Fade lore - and I loved the way you started the game with an introduction to your familiy and stuff like that.

I really felt part of that world as I was playing - and it was obvious the developers really cared for it.

Oh, that's right - my biggest issue was actually the lack of cooperative multiplayer - which I fully expected after BG/NWN.

Just on the combat & Deep Roads, all I'd say with that is that it really needs to be played on Nightmare to appriciate it.

If you've tried that and still don't like it then fair play. But for me The Deep Roads actually has some of the best tactical battles in any RPG, you just don't notice all the detail until Nightmare forces you to assess all the details of each situation. And through doing that for me it creates a great sense of claustraphobia, exhaustion & depth overall.

What keeps it fresh for me is the party banter, and amount of choices availble. There's just so many combinations of characters & actions.

I've still not done an "all bad" run yet, so might go for that one this time. Trouble is I'm a soft twat who feels for the virtual people lol.

I don't remember what difficulty level I played at - though I tend to play on the one above "Normal" for most games.

That said, I'm not a big fan of Nightmare modes - as they tend to go over-the-top with hitpoints and makes it more of a grind than a pleasure. It depends on how it works.

Survival mode in Fallout 4 is ideal, for my part. It makes the game both harder and more immersive, but actually LESS of a grind in terms of hitpoints and the numbers game.

For me, TTK has very little to do with actual challenge - and more to do with patience. Challenge should be about skill - not how long things take.

I started Origins again on Nightmare difficulty. Just got to Lothering. Combat is so-so at this stage. I chose a rogue because I got fed up with Fade. I really liked the lore and atmosphere of Fade the first time around but now it's annoying me, especially the music.

Similarly, I enjoyed the party banter quite a bit the first time around but not finding it spectacular anymore. I definitely think BG2 and The Aielund Saga did a better job in that regard. But C&C is pretty good in Origins.

Will see how I feel about the whole game this time around.

You still need to do the Fade though. It's just a very small part in the start that you get to avoid by not being a Mage.

I have skip the Fade mod installed :)

The Fade is indeed a mediocre sequence compared to the rest of the game. Not only is it boring, but I don't like how you gain so many attribute points in such a short amount of time. That made it feel cheap to me.

Thankfully it's short enough to not be a huge deal, imo.

So how did it fare mate?

I'll be honest & say that my 2nd & 3rd playthroughs were my faves.

?? Thread resurrection lol.

I gave it up a long time ago @Falksi . It's just not grabbing me anymore. The combat was more fun in nightmare difficulty, but the rest was meh… Finished mage tower, red cliff, and just started on Brecilian forest - this is where I always give up…. Lol

Best rpg game ever? Nope. Excellent and rare (for its time) classical rpg game, with old school type sensibilities and influences from masterpieces such as Baldur's Gate? Hell yea.

It has been a long time since I played it, but I remember that the combat was incredible. It was so good, in fact, that I bought an original dvd copy because I was so pissed at what the first few patches had done to the game. (It nerfed the combat, and made it way easier) [and because you can't revert patches on steam or play an unpatched version]

I still have yet to replay it with that dvd copy, but its on my "want to play" backlog list.

Certainly not the best crpg ever made, at least in my opinion. But it is the only Dragon Age game that exists for me, I've played it through completely three times so far, and I suspect I'll play it again at some point. Having so many origin points at the beginning is a huge draw for me, so many different possibilities.

I would agree with Carnifex. I played through twice, once as a good hearted dwarf commoner, and once as a cynical city elf, and I might eventually go through to play the other origins. I love that, I think the origins are a super of way of giving you a feel for your characters, and making character choice seem to matter. Many of the dungeons though I find rather tedious, not because of the combat, but because of the level design. The tower of sorcery including the fade and the the deep roads stand out as my least favorite.